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Joined: Nov 2012
Posts: 2,513 Likes: 1
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Joined: Nov 2012
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Why don't they put references to Monty Python or Fawlty Towers in these tests, instead, if they insist on including irrelevant pop culture references? Now THAT would be a true ability differentiator. The 5-year-old who can discern sarcasm from irony is far more sophisticated than the one who can identify the nauseating Disney princesses.
FWIW (which isn't terribly much), I think parents who choose to eschew "cultural" North American foods and media are wise, though I can also appreciate the perspective of parents who feel they need to "play the game" to prevent their child from being disadvantaged on content.
What is to give light must endure burning.
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Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 5,259 Likes: 8
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... postage stamp... typewriter... iron... SO I realized there may be quite a lot of "cultural" bias in those IQ tests! Sounds like these items may be known to adults but not to most children due to technology changes throughout society in recent decades. Some may say that age or generation, not culture per se, would be a factor in being familiar with these items? Possibly all children of today are equally disadvantaged regarding these items? While these items were familiar for many decades, possibly the tests are now outdated and need to be updated periodically?
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Joined: Apr 2011
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Tests are renormed every decade or so, these cultural reason plus the flynn effect are why you should always use the most curret test... But there's been rapid change in the last decade in a few areas. My DD was asked a question for which the correct answer was newspaper. In her life newspapers are for wrapping things when you move house and lining cat litter etc. She'd had no experience ever of them being purchased new or actually read.... That's what the iPad is for :-). 10 years before she was tested newspapers WERE still viable businesses...
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Joined: Apr 2013
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Tests are renormed every decade or so, these cultural reason plus the flynn effect are why you should always use the most curret test... But there's been rapid change in the last decade in a few areas... My DD was asked a question for which the correct answer was newspaper. In her life newspapers are for wrapping things when you move house and lining cat litter etc. She'd had no experience ever of them being purchased new or actually read.... That's what the iPad is for :-). 10 years before she was tested newspapers WERE still viable businesses... ... postage stamp... typewriter... iron... newspaper... hope the test companies take these into account as nostalgic items from days of yore.
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Joined: Feb 2010
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10 years before she was tested newspapers WERE still viable businesses... I still get the Wall Street Journal daily, and my children browse the weekend edition. We get lots of magazines. Some newspapers and magazines are still viable.
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Joined: Mar 2012
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... postage stamp... typewriter... iron... newspaper... hope the test companies take these into account as nostalgic items from days of yore. Add a pot of ink and a fountain pen to your list. My child has never seen anyone use those. I did a futile search for them in my neighborhood stores to show one to my DS. He even told me that a feather quill was what was used with a pot of ink because that is what he had read about in a book! In this era of twitter and facebook and viral information spreading to all corners of the world, it seems really strange that these IQ tests are renormed every decade. I would love a job that involves IQ test renorming - I might get busy once in a decade (just kidding!).
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Joined: Oct 2011
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Not an IQ question, but DD8's math homework recently had a word problem featuring a certain famous, household-name basketball player from Chicago's heyday who wore number 23. He played his last basketball game two years before she was born... nevermind that we're a basketball-free home... Why don't they put references to Monty Python or Fawlty Towers in these tests, instead, if they insist on including irrelevant pop culture references? LOL... those aren't irrelevant in our home. DD8 has been watching random clips from Holy Grail and Life of Brian with me for the past two evenings.
Last edited by Dude; 11/08/13 09:39 AM. Reason: Ye gods... the name starts with J and ends with Orden, for the curious.
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181
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Add The Far Side.
My DD knew who Gary Larsen was before she recognized Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse either one, and she knew all the words to The Lumberjack Song well before she hit pre-algebra...
ROFL.
Of course, she's also a kid who is fascinated by the moderately archaic, so the souvenir that she wanted when we visited Trinity College, Dublin? A German-made FOUNTAIN PEN in the college bookstore. She also possesses a watch which must be wound, and has a grandparent who has been a passionate philatelist for a lifetime. So she is reasonably familiar with many of those things, but that's in part (again) due to our relatively quirky lifestyle. Up until a year ago, she hadn't ever held a smartphone or seen a GPS up close. So.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Mar 2012
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Add The Far Side.
My DD knew who Gary Larsen was before she recognized Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse either one, and she knew all the words to The Lumberjack Song well before she hit pre-algebra...
ROFL.
Of course, she's also a kid who is fascinated by the moderately archaic, so the souvenir that she wanted when we visited Trinity College, Dublin? A German-made FOUNTAIN PEN in the college bookstore. She also possesses a watch which must be wound, and has a grandparent who has been a passionate philatelist for a lifetime. So she is reasonably familiar with many of those things, but that's in part (again) due to our relatively quirky lifestyle. Up until a year ago, she hadn't ever held a smartphone or seen a GPS up close. So. I had a German made fountain pen and used it regularly as a kid (a long, long time ago)! Now that you mention GPS, I pulled out some old AAA paper maps from my garage storage last year and showed my DS what real maps looked like when dad and mom used to naviagte using them on trips. He saved a few and plays with them often.
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Joined: Mar 2013
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i'm relieved to hear that a few others' kids would also be ok on the arcane objects.
DD5 loves paper maps, writes real letters every week (stamps!), is learning to touch type (typewriter!) and flips through the Sunday NY Times every week (to research her football picks.) she is also campaigning for me to buy her bottles of ink and fountain pens. the iron on the other hand is not getting much use around here, but i swear we do have one... i should ask DD if she knows what it is. we also have a gramophone amplifier, but it's for the ipad - so that may or may not count toward our status as completely insufferable luddites.
and i'm with y'all on the Monty Python/Far Side/Fawlty Towers - if we can add Yes, Minister to the test, we're all set.
Every Sunday it brooded and lay on the floor. Inconveniently close to the drawing-room door.
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